empty house

Grandmother's funeral was this morning. It was okay, I guess. I was one of the pallbearers.

My grandfather died on a Monday and was buried on a Friday, too. But it was really hot that day. It was in the late summer. It's very wintry out today.

Saw my cousin Josh. Hadn't seen him since I was little. His father, uncle Robert, gave a speech at the cemetery. It was about Josh's brother Jeremy and how he's going to Iraq in the summer. Uncle Robert talked about how, to most people, what Jeremy is doing is considered heroic. And then uncle Robert said that his mother was his hero and his voice started to crack, which was hard to listen to because uncle Robert is a very stoic man, a veteran, of whom some of my earliest memories are him lugging trash bags of shell casings into my grandparents' backyard. Once, he pulled a gun on my cousin's husband, who happens to be a pedophile scumbag, but one of my aunts talked uncle Robert out of killing him.

Grandmother was Catholic, so there was a mass at the church. Pretty weird for an atheist like me. Lots of sitting and standing. Fortunately there were other Catholics at the service, so I just followed their lead.

I found out that grandmother played piano and sang! I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe she's dead. She took care of us and then we took care of her and now she's gone and what're we going to do?